Maple Whiskey Peach Fritters

Millions of peaches, peaches for me! — It’s nearing the end of peach season (womp, womp), but there is still a bit of time if you haven’t taken the opportunity to go grab a basket of fresh ones for yourself. I recently went with the intention of coming home with like half of a peck. I ended up with over 30 pounds. 30 pounds is like… more than both of my cats together. Huge.

Peach Orchard in Kentucky

To start off using some of these fuzzy lovelies, I decided to give fritters a go. I had recently had some delicious glazed fritters (apple, as you usually find) from a small bakery in Kentucky. Why not make peach ones? Why not also add some booze to them? Maple Whiskey Peach Fritters were the final (absolutely delicious) product.

Saffy being such a peach!

Speaking of my cats, I can’t help but throw this out into the ol’ interwebs. When I was setting up my little area to take photos for this post, Saffy decided that she wanted to see what was going on (as usual– she always sits and watches me cook). She jumped up and found a single, tiny peach that I had been using to set some of the camera functions with on top of the backdrop. She took it onto herself to basically destroy it like she would a tennis ball. Needless to say, that peach didn’t make it into the mix.

Back to those sweet fritters– This may upset some people, but I am a strong believer that you just can’t have a perfect doughnut-style fritters unless it is yeast-risen. Sure, the quick flour and whatever recipes are ready faster, but the taste and more importantly the texture just isn’t anywhere close to what it is with the yeast variety. These aren’t the speediest, most simple things to make. They are, though, a labor of love. Sweet, sweet boozy love. (The best kind, right?)

I decided to cook the peaches in a simple cinnamon syrup. I would think that you could achieve a pretty delicious fritter with just leaving them how you found them as you picked the peaches from the tree if you wanted. Cinnamon seemed to be in my mind for the day, as various spices generally are, so– why not?

Since I [sadly] haven’t yet invested in a commercial sized deep fryer, the wee little Fry Daddy made an appearance. You know, that type that you may have hidden in the corner of your dorm room for late night snacks. No? You didn’t do that? Hmm.

You could cook these in a large Dutch or pot, but you really do need the oil to maintain its temperature as well as possible. This is sometimes pretty tough to do in a stovetop pot with thermometer. I don’t have to worry about any of that when I use a standalone fryer. If you house is anything like mine, that prevents burning the first 1 or 5. Everyone will appreciate that.

Some people make fritters pretty small. Like a little single bite or two thing. I just don’t get that, really. If I get a glazed fritter, I want it to be sorta lumpy and the size of my entire hand. My hand stretched out as far as it will go. That size. These might be cute in smaller blobs, but that’s for another day, perhaps. Today’s fritter is brought to you by the letter.. gluttony.

The lumpy part of the fritter makes a big difference in the texture. I found that chopping them into pieces and then gathering into the fritter shape gives it that almost swirled sort of appeal. Peaches on the outside, peaches on the inside. You get my drift.

I can’t believe it has taken me this long to mention the absolutely perfect glaze that blankets these sweet eats! Get ready for it… Maple. Whiskey. Icing. Glaze. The only way to truly appreciate those 4 words is to make it for yourself. We had this maple whiskey on the shelf for a while and hadn’t used it yet. A breakfast pastry seemed to be as good as any reason. I can only think to describe it as a sweet maple syrup, like you would eat on pancakes, but ten times better. Because, well, whiskey.

The flavor is subtle, but does everything it can to accent the fresh peaches flavor. Maple syrup (whiskey!), peaches, and sugar. What else could you want? I used a Maple Whiskey from Bird Dog Whiskey.

I can’t help but think that these really are the perfect breakfast treat. You can make them ahead of time (freeze them, even!) and be able to grab it on your way out of the door. I can promise you that nothing will help your commute more than a sweet, peach-filled pastry. Peaches are fruit. So it’s technically not even a treat, but merely just your own personal step towards a balanced diet!

From this FATTY to yours, I hope that every single one of you tries this recipe out. It’s seriously that delicious. Keep that fryer hot, because you aren’t going to want to stop once you’ve tried them. Enjoy, y’all!

DANG. These look amazing. I agree that they should be as big as your hand. Who has time for mini fritters? I just made a peach, maple + bourbon ice cream. Your fritters and my ice cream would make an excellent team.

Yummy 🙂 And while we’re on the subject of peaches, I usually peel them using this method:http://www.listonic.com/protips/get/ijkdgvctxl
In short, you have to place a peach in a bowl of warm water and then give it an ice bath 🙂
Thanks for sharing your recipe. Best wishes!

I just did that so that the fritters would have peaches on the outside as well as inside. How many will depend in how big they were cut. Just enough to form a fritter for your preference should be fine. Mine were about 2 to 2 1/2 inches wide. Leave lumpy and don’t press them flat.